Pete Hegseth to overhaul US military lawyers in effort to relax rules of war

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is expected in the coming weeks to start a sweeping overhaul of the judge advocate general’s corps as part of an effort to make the US military less restricted by the laws of armed conflict, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The changes are poised to have implications across the military, as Hegseth’s office considers changes to the interpretation of the US rules of engagement on the battlefield to the way that charges are brought under the military justice system.

The defense department is currently in the process of nominating new judge advocate generals (Jags) for the army, navy and air force after Hegseth fired their predecessors in a late-night purge last month, and the overhaul is not expected to start until they are in place.

But remaking the Jag corps is a priority for Hegseth, who on Friday commissioned his personal lawyer and former naval officer Tim Parlatore as a navy commander to oversee the effort carrying the weight and authority of the defense secretary’s office.

The overhaul of the Jag corps will be aimed at retraining military lawyers, the people said, so that they provide more expansive legal advice to commanders to pursue more aggressive tactics and take a more lenient approach in charging soldiers with battlefield crimes.

Part of that approach reflects Parlatore’s views on Jag officers, whom he has described to associates as effectively becoming involved in decision making and failing to exercise discretion when deciding what charges to include in military prosecutions.

One of the complaints has been that Jags have been too restrictive in interpreting rules of engagement and took the requirement that soldiers positively identify a target as an enemy combatant before opening fire to mean soldiers needed to identify the target having a weapon.